


Walking off the chessboard: Sam and Lucifer and the role of the Scapegoat in SPN

by amonitrate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-26 00:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14390406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonitrate/pseuds/amonitrate
Summary: Season 5 gave us some really juicy parallels between Sam and Lucifer and their places within their respective dysfunctional families. This essay explores their similarities and differences and the role of Scapegoat they both play in their respective families.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2010, originally posted to LJ.
> 
> I haven't re-read this one yet so caveats apply: there's stuff here I wouldn't agree with or would have written very differently today. In the near-decade since this was written my thinking has definitely evolved about any number of the topics covered.

Terms like codependency and dysfunction are freely applied to Sam and Dean in SPN fandom, but the meaning of the words and how the characters are specifically effected are rarely analyzed in any depth. The writers on SPN aren't just tossing around the word _codependent_ for the laughs. From the beginning of the series, the characters have exhibited traits and behavior patterns that are identifiable to anyone familiar with how dysfunctional families work.

In my posts on the subject to date, I’ve tended to talk more about the [Winchester Family dysfunction](http://amonitrate.livejournal.com/505753.html) as it relates to Dean, and to a lesser extent John, than I have about Sam (to the point where I was afraid those analyses might read as if Sam escaped the dysfunction, which, uh, no). And partially this is because Sam didn’t easily fit in with the themes I was choosing to talk about at the time (namely, the cycle of self-sacrifice, a club which only as of the end of Season 5 does Sam get a chance to join), and partially because my posts were already tl;dr as it was. And one of the biggest reasons was that I hadn’t found a frame for talking about how Sam fits into the dysfunction the way I wanted to.

Though I discussed the way Sam and Dean fit [two traditional dysfunctional family roles.](http://amonitrate.livejournal.com/492052.html) I’ve known for awhile that I wanted to further explore Sam as Scapegoat. The framework didn’t gel for me completely until the close of Season 5, when everything snapped into place. The most recent season gave us some really juicy parallels between Sam and Lucifer and their places within their respective dysfunctional families.

In order to get at how they are similar, and how in the end they differed in a fundamental way, I want to first expand a bit on the role of the “Scapegoat” in terms of family dysfunction.

**The role of the Scapegoat in the dysfunctional family**

A brief note about these roles I’m talking about:

 _It is important to realize that what I am about to describe is a subconscious process that is passed down from generation to generation. The family does not consciously realize they are doing this at any point._ [(1)](http://www.kellevision.com/kellevision/2008/11/the-scapegoat.html)**

Basically, these roles are adaptive processes that allow a dysfunctional family to survive. They’re like the gears that keep the family machine moving, because otherwise it would collapse under the weight of the dysfunction. And when one member of a family stops “playing their role” so to speak, that’s very often what happens: the machine falters until the roles are adjusted, or the dysfunction is dealt with. Unfortunately the former is usually the result.

These roles aren’t set in stone, they’re just a framework for discussing the inner workings of the family. In brief: there is usually the person at the heart of the dysfunction, often an addict (see: John Winchester). The other family members arrange themselves around that dysfunction, adapting to it, often in stereotypical behavior patterns. Also note that individuals in the family can combine roles or change roles over time. For example, I’ve discussed Dean as “the Hero” before; but he also fills the role of “Caretaker.” And interestingly, the show addresses this split role with the theme of Dean being saddled with the responsibility of either killing Sam (a [Heroic job](http://amonitrate.livejournal.com/508543.html)) or saving him (a [Caretaking one](http://amonitrate.livejournal.com/504947.html)).

So why does a dysfunctional family need a Scapegoat? It’s because down deep, everyone in the family knows something is wrong. And because denial is so strong, because facing what is wrong in the family is so threatening, there needs to be some way to excuse or explain this “wrongness”: and that often becomes one of the children in the family. Usually this is the second child. When the family can point to this child’s behavior (which is almost always rooted in a reaction or adaptation to the ignored dysfunction itself) as What Is Wrong, it relieves that pressure of having to actually face the truth. Everyone is distracted by the Scapegoat instead.

Parents can blame the Scapegoat’s behavior and not have to face how their parenting is perhaps causing the behavior. The Scapegoat becomes the focus, becomes something to “fix” -- if only the Scapegoat was “fixed” then the family’s problems would vanish. While the Hero’s “success” is the family’s “proof” that nothing is wrong, the Scapegoat also plays this role: the Scapegoat’s “failures” are “proof” that nothing needs to change, because those failures are entirely of the individual, rather than a result of the family structure.

 _The family scapegoat is the individual who the family generally identifies and blames as being responsible for the family's problems. Other family members minimize or deny their own responsibility and/or participation in family problems and dramatically over estimate the culpability of the scapegoat. Many families have been greatly surprised or sadly disappointed when the departure or removal of the scapegoat has not improved or even cured family problems. After a scapegoat has left, most families simply find another one._ [(2)](http://www.counselingnh.com/family-scapegoat.html)

**Traits of the Scapegoat**

From my [earlier post](http://amonitrate.livejournal.com/492052.html), here are a few of the basic traits of a family Scapegoat:

_Tends to be the second child. Rebels against family rules, acts out, becomes a lightening rod for the family's dysfunction to focus on, scapegoated for the family's problems whether deserving or not, fails at school, carries a lot of anger, more vulnerable to chemical abuse, feels like a misfit, has issues with authority. Often sees the reality of the family pattern more clearly than others. Quite often feels literally like a monster._

As with all the roles, how the Scapegoat role works is complex. While the family does place inordinate blame on the Scapegoat for the dysfunction of the family unit, in what you could call a “self-fulfilling prophecy” the Scapegoat is often responsible for the behavior that the family puts its focuses on. Which is to say:

 _When someone is in the scapegoat role, that person is not necessarily "innocent" of all wrong doing. In fact, there is likely to be a negative and provocative personna [sic] in that person that invites and reflects a negative view from others._ [(3)](http://www.counselingnh.com/family-scapegoat.html)

The Scapegoat might act out due to the dysfunction, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t responsible for her own actions, especially once she reaches adulthood. It’s the sort endless of loop of cause-and-effect catch-22 that entangles all of the members of the dysfunctional family in one way or another. Just because a behavior might be an unconscious adaptation to the environment doesn’t absolve the individual of responsibility for their own actions.

Which is a point I’ll come back to when discussing Sam and Lucifer at the end of Season 5.

 

**A comment on this blog: I have some critiques of her description of the scapegoat as the "strongest" and "most loving" of the family roles - the author admits to being her own family's scapegoat so she's not exactly unbiased here. Note that she has no posts that speak individually about the other family roles. While there is some bias in her discussions, there is also much of great value there. I think there is a tendency for people who grow up in dysfunctional families to romanticize the role they filled in order to rationalize the damage done to them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sam and Lucifer as Scapegoats**  
  
The specific Scapegoat traits that I want to focus on in terms of Sam and Lucifer are a)their positions as focal points for their family’s blame, b)their positions as tellers of the family truths (as they see them), and c)how they help perpetuate their own role within the family, by “buying into” the role. And lastly I’ll speak briefly about how Sam started down the road toward escaping this role, where Lucifer could not do so.  
  
[One note: In discussing Lucifer, I am going to take his words on the show at face value. Therefore I’m going to approach him as a character on SPN, not necessarily as the larger mytho-religious figure. If that’s even a word. Which means I am going to accept the truth of his explanation on SPN for why he fell, with the caveat that his intentions when telling the story are probably self-serving and manipulative. I do find it interesting that neither Castiel nor Michael disputes Lucifer’s version of events.]  
  
SPN sets up many parallels between the characters of Sam and Lucifer. Both are rejected and exiled from their families by their fathers for “disobedience” that stems from acting on their free will. Both question the structures of their families, the roles they and their family members play, and the authority of their fathers. And both act in destructive ways that harm other people in the course of doing what they feel is right, which perpetuates their role as scapegoat.  
  
The Scapegoat as focus of family dysfunction  
  
On SPN monsters are real, and often serve as narrative foils for the main characters or help illuminate major themes. The catalyst that changes the Winchester family dynamics at the start of the show is therefore a demon who kills Mary Winchester and burns down the house, rather than a less fantastic form of trauma. From the beginning, it’s established that this trauma somehow centers around (then infant) Sam, who we later learn was one of YED’s chosen children, whom he fed drops of demon blood.  
  
It’s a wonderful metaphor for a Scapegoat in a dysfunctional family: through no fault of the child, he’s positioned as the “cause” of the family’s problems, as “tainted.” And SPN continues to beautifully illustrate how this dynamic really works, when it explores both John Winchester’s reaction to the initial trauma (which forms the personalities of his sons), and then later fills in the blanks with the deal Mary made years before that led to the trauma. Not to mention Dean’s unwittingly leading YED to his mother after being sent back in time. Everyone is therefore implicated in the catch-22 of family dysfunction.  
  
So from the start, Sam is marked as “different” even if he’s kept in the dark as to why. As I remarked in my first post on the topic, how the roles play out in the Winchester family are superficially a flip from the usual model, in that Dean is an anti-social high school dropout conman and Sam is an academic star who (in college anyhow) makes friends and acts the role of a worthy member of society; but within the context of the Winchester family, Dean is indeed the “Hero” because he fulfills the requirements of his particular family structure (exceptional hunter, unquestioning soldier) where Sam is the “Scapegoat” because he wants something different and rebels against his father. At the heart, the dynamic is intact: Sam questions, Sam clashes with his father, Sam becomes the focal point of what’s wrong with the Winchester family. Two major examples of this in action are when Sam runs away from home and when he finally makes a break and leaves for Stanford.  
  
The dynamic between Sam and Dean in the first season often illustrates this positioning of Sam as the “bad son”:  
  
1.11

> _SAM_   
>  _I don't understand the blind faith you have in the man. I mean, it's like you don't even question him._
> 
> _DEAN_   
>  _Yeah, it's called being a good son! You're a selfish bastard, you know that? You just do whatever you want. Don't care what anybody thinks._

And when they join up with John, Dean places the blame for the tension between them on Sam:  
  
1.20

>   
> SAM  
> That's probably what Dad's thinking. Of course, it would be nice if he just told us what he thinks.
> 
> DEAN  
> So, it is starting.
> 
> SAM  
> What?
> 
> DEAN  
> Sam, we've been lookin' for Dad all year. Now we're not with him for more than a couple of hours, and there's static already?

And later in the same episode, John blames Sam for the fracturing of the family instead of taking responsibility for his part in Sam’s exile:

>   
> SAM  
> This is why I left in the first place.
> 
> JOHN  
> What'd you say?
> 
> SAM  
> You heard me.
> 
> JOHN  
> Yeah. You left. Your brother and me, we needed you. You walked away, Sam, you walked away!

The theme is further developed with the demon blood/chosen children storyline, where through no fault of his own Sam becomes the fixation of the YED, who wants to make him the leader of a demon army (literally wants to make Sam into a monster). And in John’s reaction to this knowledge: by giving Dean the order to either kill or save Sam from this fate, Sam is once again made the center of the family’s dysfunction, framing him as something to be “fixed” in order to heal the family. Then in season four, even before Sam is identified as Lucifer’s vessel, the angels mirror John by placing Sam in the position of Scapegoat when they demand that Dean control Sam’s behavior with Ruby, in a sense incorporating both Sam and Dean into a new dysfunctional family: that of Heaven.  
  
In season five, we learn that Sam is Lucifer’s chosen vessel, and things get even more interesting, because Lucifer himself plays the role of Scapegoat for his own family.  
  
For the angelic family, the major trauma seems to have been God’s creation of humans and his subsequent order that the angels turn their devotion from God to these new creatures. God’s orders disrupt the dynamic of the heavenly family, creating, in a sense, dysfunction. While most of the angels we meet on SPN show bigotry towards humans (Uriel and Zachariah are both particularly vehement), the only angel who protested this order outright was Lucifer. As he tells it:  
  
5.04

> LUCIFER  
> You know why God cast me down? Because I loved him. More than anything. And then God created... You. The little...hairless apes. And then he asked all of us to bow down before you—to love you, more than him. And I said, "Father, I can't." I said, "These human beings are flawed, murderous." And for that, God had Michael cast me into hell.

Uriel backs up Lucifer’s story, in “On the Head of a Pin”:  
  
4.16

> URIEL  
> You do remember him? How strong he was? How beautiful? And he didn't bow to humanity. He was punished for defending us.

Gabriel both describes the heavenly family as dysfunctional and echoes Lucifer’s place as a Scapegoat (as well as Michael’s role of Hero):  
  
5.08

> GABRIEL  
> You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner...  
> Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan.

And in the season finale, Michael goes further than even Lucifer’s own story, blaming him for God’s absence as well as the shattering of the angelic family:  
  
5.22

> MICHAEL  
> We were together. We were happy. But you betrayed me -- all of us -- And you made our father leave.

God was the one who introduced the “dysfunction” into the family, by giving the angels an order that most of them appear to have resented. Because the angels are supposed to obey God without question, their resentments went unspoken (typical of a dysfunctional family!). But Lucifer was the only one to do anything about it by refusing, and therefore Lucifer is blamed by his siblings for the trouble that followed.

Furthermore, the Apocalypse is framed by the angels (see Raphael and Gabriel’s weariness and desire for the whole thing to end) as the key to “fixing” the rupture in the angelic family through the defeat of Lucifer by his brother Michael, bringing about Paradise. It’s nearly a direct analogy to the notion in dysfunctional families that if only the Scapegoat could be “fixed” (removal is a form of fixing, here), the family will be healed of whatever is wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

 

The Scapegoat as truth teller

Perhaps because there is less pressure on the Scapegoat to project the “success” of the family (as with The Hero) and because of their position as the focus of the family’s negative attention, the Scapegoat often sees the family dynamic the most clearly, and therefore:

 _The Scapegoat in a family system is often the one who tells (or acts out) the truth in the family, the elephant in the living room that no one is talking about. It is this act of truth telling that makes them the target for family rebuke._   ([4](http://www.kellevision.com/kellevision/2009/05/the-scapegoat-as-truth-teller.html))

Right away in the pilot, Sam displays this trait of telling difficult family truths in a confrontation with Dean over their family mission and its ties to their mother’s death, and Dean reacts negatively:

1.01

 

> _SAM  
>  No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life._
> 
> _DEAN_  
>  You have a responsibility to—
> 
> _SAM_  
>  To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back.
> 
> _DEAN grabs SAM by the collar and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. A long pause.  
>  _
> 
> _DEAN  
>  Don't talk about her like that._

Sam continues to question the family dynamic, most strongly throughout season 1 whenever John gives orders he expects his sons to follow.

The conversation between Sam and John in “In My Time of Dying” is particularly illustrative of the Scapegoat dynamic at work:

2.01

 

> SAM  
>  Did you think I wouldn't find out? ...That stuff from Bobby, you don't use it to ward off a demon, you use it to summon one. You're planning on bringing the demon here, aren't you? Having some stupid macho showdown?!
> 
> JOHN  
>  I have a plan, Sam.
> 
> SAM  
>  That's exactly my point! Dean is dying, and you have a plan! You know what, you care more about killing this demon than you do saving your own son!
> 
> JOHN  
>  Do not tell me how I feel! I am doing this for Dean.
> 
> SAM  
>  How? How is revenge going to help him? You're not thinking about anybody but yourself, it's the same selfish obsession!
> 
> JOHN  
>  You know, it's funny, I thought it was your obsession too! This demon killed your mother, killed your girlfriend. You begged me to be part of this hunt. Now if you'd killed that damn thing when you had the chance, none of this would have happened. _  
> _

Here, Sam confronts his father, expressing what he sees as the truth: that John cares more about the mission than what happens to his sons; and John in turn places blame for the YED’s escape as well as Dean’s serious injuries onto Sam, once again berating him for not falling in line with his father’s orders.

Sam tells other truths too: throughout the series he prods Dean into telling the truth about how he’s feeling. In “Something Wicked” it’s Sam who points out that Dean was only a child when their father put such a heavy responsibility onto him. In “Jump the Shark” Sam’s the one who wants to tell Adam the truth about the supernatural world and the family mission. In “I Believe the Children Are The Future,” Sam ultimately tells Jesse the truth about his parentage. In both “A Very Supernatural Christmas” and “The Dark Side of the Moon” Sam lays bare the painfulness of the Winchester holidays, and in the latter episode on witnessing one of Dean’s memories of his childhood, Sam wonders aloud how long Dean has been cleaning up their father’s messes.

Season 5 in particular shows Sam becoming more and more aware of how the family dynamic works and has effected his relationship with his brother. While in the past [Dean has questioned](http://amonitrate.livejournal.com/505753.html#cutid1) the family’s sacrifice/vengeance cycle, Sam questions the family roles, how they interact.

5.05

 

> SAM  
>  [B]ut the point is, if we're gonna be a team, you and I—it has to be a two-way street.
> 
> DEAN  
>  So we just go back to the way we were before?
> 
> SAM  
>  No, because we were never that way before. Before didn't work. How do you think we got here?... one of the reasons I went off with Ruby...was to get away from you.... It made me feel strong. Like I wasn't your kid brother...All I'm saying is that, if we're gonna do this, we have to do it different, we can't just fall into the same rut.
> 
> DEAN  
>  What do you want me to do?
> 
> SAM  
>  You're gonna have to let me grow up, for starters.

What Sam’s asking for here is what the brothers had started to grow towards in season 1, before their father rejoined them and placed the burden of Sam’s fate on Dean’s shoulders again, undoing the strides they’d made towards an equal partnership. Throughout the series, there are many similar examples of Sam playing the role of truth-teller.

Lucifer also tells his family’s uncomfortable truths, and even examines the roles he and his brother Michael are filling. While it may be meant to manipulate his potential vessel into saying yes, Lucifer points out one of the paradoxes about God that have troubled many people:

5.01

 

> LUCIFER  
>  After all, how could God stand idly by while that man broke into your home and butchered your family in their beds? There are only two rational answers, Nick—either he's sadistic, or he simply doesn't care. You're angry. You have every right to be angry. I am angry, too. That's why I want to find him—hold him accountable for his actions. Just because he created us doesn't mean he can toy with us, like playthings.
> 
> NICK  
>  How do I know you're telling the truth?
> 
> LUCIFER  
>  Because, contrary to popular belief, I don't lie. I don't need to.

As far as I remember, Lucifer never does lie, though he does manipulate. In “The End” Lucifer even explicitly describes himself in the role of Scapegoat and links it to his telling the truth about humanity as he saw it:

5.04

 

> LUCIFER  
>  I said, "These human beings are flawed, murderous." And for that, God had Michael cast me into hell. Now, tell me, does the punishment fit the crime? Especially, when I was right? Look at what six billion of you have done to this thing [God’s creation], and how many of you blame me for it.

He’s not wrong about humans, though his perspective is narrow. He even reveals a horrible truth to Sam, pointing out how deeply the infiltration by YED’s demons was in Sam’s life:

5.22

 

> LUCIFER  
>  Look closely. None of these little devils look familiar to you?
> 
> SAM:  
>  That's Mr. Bensman... one of my grade-school teachers.
> 
> LUCIFER  
>  And that's your friend Doug from that time in East Lansing. And Rachel... Your prom date. Sam Winchester, this is your life. Azazel's gang -- Watching you since you were a rugrat, Jerking you around like a dog on a leash. _  
> _

Most of his truth telling comes off as very manipulative in context, but the conversation between Lucifer and Michael in 5.22 reads more honest to me, and also questions the roles he and Michael are playing in the angelic family, just as Sam does in 5.05:

5.22

 

> LUCIFER  
>  Think about it. Dad made everything. Which means he made me who I am! God wanted the devil... So why? And why make us fight? I just can't figure out the point. ...We're going to kill each other. And for what? One of dad's tests. And we don't even know the answer. We're brothers. Let's just walk off the chessboard.

Lucifer has no more love for humans than any of the other angels, but he’s not remotely interested in the Apocalypse, or in fighting his brother, though he continually questions God and the heavenly family, and this -- if you take his story at face value (and no one disputes it) -- is what earns him his place in hell, as the ultimate Scapegoat.

  



	4. Chapter 4

Perpetuating the role of Scapegoat

One of the catch-22’s that the Scapegoat faces is that rebelling against the dysfunctional family system can paradoxically continue it, because by reacting against the family the Scapegoat is still accepting the role that’s been placed on him, perpetuating his own position in the family as nexus of all that’s wrong. And because the Scapegoat eventually internalizes these judgments, he can come to agree with them down deep: become convinced of his own wrongness and failure, even accept that he’s the monster he feels like his family has cast him to be. The role is cyclical: the family blames the Scapegoat for the dysfunction everyone is otherwise ignoring, in reaction the Scapegoat acts out, then the family reacts to that behavior and so reinforces their own treatment of him.

This dynamic is illustrated in a nutshell in the season 1 character of Max, in “Nightmare”: Max’s father blames him for the death of his mother, making Max into a Scapegoat, and unlike John, physically abusing him as a result. Which causes Max to act out, violently killing the men who had abused him and threatening his stepmother who had done nothing to stop it. Max’s behavior, though sparked by the way his family treated him, in turn causes Sam and Dean to confront and try to stop him. The cycle continues until Max kills himself. Max serves as a foil for Sam in his role of Scapegoat, anticipating some of the reactions Sam exhibits in season 4 and showing just how the dysfunctional family’s treatment of the Scapegoat contributes to the Scapegoat’s behavior, and how that behavior can then reinforce the role.

By continually reacting against John in season 1, Sam gives the very behavior he’s critiquing legitimacy and power, and in a sense turns the scapegoating he’s experiencing right around onto his father, pinning everything that’s wrong with his life onto John.

It’s not that Sam is wrong in his truth-telling about how John (or later Dean) treats him. It’s that he doesn’t move beyond an airing of grievances to independent, adult action regardless of what his father or brother thinks. He might protest their way of doing things, but he doesn’t step out of their framework to find his own way. And once John dies and leaves a vacuum (removes himself as the source of what’s wrong with Sam’s life), Sam does an abrupt about-face, as Dean points out in “Everybody Loves a Clown,” accepting what he’d previously resisted, following his father’s wishes:

2.02

> SAM  
>  Dad would have wanted me to stick with the job.
> 
> DEAN  
>  Since when do you give a damn what Dad wanted? You spent half your life doing exactly what he didn't want, Sam.
> 
> SAM  
>  Since he died, okay? Do you have a problem with that?

By still accepting the legitimacy of the family framework even as he protests against it, Sam plays his role. This just highlights how very difficult it can be for family members to both identify the role they’re playing in the dysfunction and to step out of that role, if even protesting the dysfunction simultaneously can enmesh you in it.

The second trap the Scapegoat faces is internalizing that feeling of being fundamentally flawed, wrong, monstrous. We see Sam start to articulate this as early as season 1, when he takes responsibility for deaths that he had no way of preventing:

1.20

> SAM  
>  So, basically, this demon is goin' after these kids for some reason- the same way it came for me? So, Mom's death, Jessica- it's all 'cause of me?
> 
> DEAN  
>  We don't know that, Sam.
> 
> SAM  
>  Oh, really, 'cause I'd say we're pretty damn sure, Dean.
> 
> DEAN  
>  For the last time, what happened to them is not your fault.
> 
> SAM  
>  Yeah, you're right, it's not my fault, but it's my problem!

As Sam and Dean discover more about the YED’s chosen children, Sam moves from accepting responsibility for deaths caused by the YED to believing he might be destined to actively start harming others:

2.05

> SAM  
>  This Andrew Gallagher, he's the second guy like this we've found, Dean. Demon came to them when they were kids, now they're killing people. [...]
> 
> DEAN  
>  What's your point?
> 
> SAM  
>  My point is, I'm one of them. ...Dean, the demon said he had plans for me and children like me. ...maybe this is his plan, maybe we're all a bunch of psychic freaks, maybe we're all supposed to be-
> 
> DEAN  
>  What, killers?
> 
> SAM  
>  Yeah.

The more Sam buys into this “truth” about his supposed monstrous destiny, the farther he loses sight of those family truths he once excelled at pointing out. Over the course of the show, Sam goes from rebelling against the idea that he’s a part of the Winchester Family Mission to fully embracing it and rationalizing his father’s behavior as well as his own. And slowly during seasons 2 and 3 we see Dean taking a more active role of teller of family truths in his place:

2.11

> SAM  
>  No, Dean, you don't understand, all right? The more people I save, the more I can change!
> 
> DEAN  
>  Change what?
> 
> SAM  
>  My destiny, Dean! ...I need you to watch out for me.
> 
> DEAN  
>  Yeah. I always do.
> 
> SAM  
>  No! No, no, no. You have to watch out for me, all right? And if I ever turn into something that I'm not, You have to kill me. ...Dean! Dad told you to do it, you have to.
> 
> DEAN  
>  Yeah, well, Dad's an ass. He never should have said anything, I mean, you don't do that, you don't, you don't lay that kind of crap on your kids.
> 
> SAM  
>  No. He was right to say it! Who knows what I might become? Even now, everyone around me dies!

Add to that the increasing pressure of the YED’s plan for the psychic children, and Sam starts to accept that he fits into the role of Scapegoat that his family had originally thrust on him.

In season 3, Sam’s role of Scapegoat takes a backseat, with the exception of Gordon Walker’s condemnation of him as an inhuman monster to be put down. It’s in season four that Sam starts to really fall into that self-fulfilling prophecy that so many Scapegoats find difficult to escape.

Feeling as if he’s failed to save his brother from hell, wracked with guilt over it, and lacking any other framework for dealing with the loss, Sam embraces what he knows from his father: the vengeance quest and the Winchester Family Mission. Ruby steps forward and tells him that everything that he’s always thought was wrong with him -- his demonic taint, his psychic powers -- can be used for good, for the mission. Even so, Sam doesn’t let go of the idea that he’s monstrous; he just decides to use his perceived monstrosity much the way Gordon Walker does after he’s turned into a vampire: to do what he sees as right.

Whether or not his full demon-ganking powers require the ingestion of demon blood (this has been debated in fandom, I wobble on the side of yes), and in the absence of any other counsel but Ruby’s, Sam embraces what he’d previously struggled against becoming. Before Dean’s return from hell, Sam has nothing left to lose. When Dean returns, however, Sam is thrust back into his family dynamic. Knowing that Dean had disapproved of his use of his power and made him promise not to use them, Sam attempts to keep what he’s doing with Ruby a secret. This comes to a head when Dean confronts him in “Metamorphosis”:

4.04

> SAM  
>  The knife kills the victim! What I do, most of them survive! Look, I've saved more people in the last five months than we save in a year.
> 
> DEAN  
>  That what Ruby wants you to think? Huh? Kind of like the way she tricked you into using your powers? Slippery slope, brother. Just wait and see. Because it's gonna get darker and darker, and God knows where it ends.
> 
> SAM  
>  I'm not gonna let it go too far.
> 
> DEAN  
>  It's already gone too far, Sam. If I didn't you know... I would wanna hunt you. And so would other hunters.
> 
> SAM  
>  You were gone. I was here. I had to keep on fighting without you. And what I'm doing... It works.
> 
> DEAN  
>  Well, tell me. If it's so terrific... then why'd you lie about it to me?

Whether or not Dean’s correct about the slippery slope (one could argue the possibility that it’s not the use of the powers that’s the slippery slope, but the choices Sam makes around their use; and certainly the ingestion of demon blood proves to have physical consequences akin to drug addiction; addiction being another common trait among Scapegoats), by hiding what he’s doing and lying about it to his brother, Sam refuses to take responsibility for his own choices and perpetuates his role as Scapegoat. And he continues to struggle with the judgment of himself as monstrous, as seen in this exchange with the MoTW in “Metamorphosis,” where he tries to articulate a sense that he can step outside the role while still accepting that he carries some kind of inherent taint:

4.04

> SAM  
>  Listen to me. You got this dark pit inside you. I know. Believe me, I know. But that doesn't mean you have to fall into it. You don't have to be a monster.
> 
> JACK  
>  Have you seen me lately?
> 
> SAM  
>  It doesn't matter what you are. It only matters what you do. It's your choice.

In the same episode, Sam takes a step towards leaving behind the Scapegoat role and owning his own choices when he tells Dean he’s going to stop using the powers, not because Dean has asked him to do so, but for his own reasons:

> SAM  
>  [T]his thing, this blood, it's not in you the way it's in me. It's just something I got to deal with. ...These powers... it's playing with fire. I'm done with them. I'm done with everything.
> 
> DEAN  
>  Really? Well, that's a relief. Thank you.
> 
> SAM  
>  Don't thank me. I'm not doing it for you. Or for the angels or for anybody. This is my choice.

However, the pressures of the season come to bear three episodes later in 4.07, when he uses his powers to defeat Samhain, saving himself, Dean, and the town Uriel had threatened to smite; and again in 4.09 when he attempts to use them against Alastair, again in self-defense. And though he no longer is keeping the use of the power secret from Dean, he continues to hide the fact that he is ingesting Ruby’s blood.

Dean isn’t the only person who warns Sam against the use of his powers. Both Uriel and Castiel do so, though they aren’t the most unbiased of sources. Less entangled in the politics of dysfunctional families, and possibly therefore more neutral, are Pamela and Chuck, who both question Sam on what he’s doing and appear to have Sam’s best interests at heart:

4.18

> SAM  
>  Have you seen visions of me when I'm not with Dean?
> 
> CHUCK  
>  Oh... You want to know if I know about the demon blood.
> 
> SAM  
>  You didn't tell Dean.
> 
> CHUCK  
>  I didn't even write it into the books. I was afraid it would make you look unsympathetic.
> 
> SAM  
>  Unsympathetic?
> 
> CHUCK  
>  Yeah, come on, Sam. I mean, sucking blood? You got to know that's wrong.
> 
> SAM  
>  It scares the hell out of me. I mean, I feel it inside of me. I... I wish to god I could stop.
> 
> CHUCK  
>  But you keep going back.
> 
> SAM  
>  What choice have I got? If it helps me kill Lilith and stop the apocalypse --
> 
> CHUCK  
>  I thought that was Dean's job. That's what the Angels say, right?
> 
> SAM  
>  Dean’s not...he's not Dean lately. Since he got out of hell. He needs help.
> 
> CHUCK  
>  So you got to carry the weight?
> 
> SAM  
>  Well, he's looked after me my whole life. I can't return the favor?
> 
> CHUCK  
>  Yeah, sure you can. I mean if that's what this is.
> 
> SAM  
>  What else would it be?
> 
> CHUCK  
>  I don't know. Maybe the demon blood makes you feel stronger? More in control?
> 
> SAM  
>  No. That's not true.

Note Sam’s initial emphasis on keeping the secret from Dean, and Dean’s place in his rationalization -- that Sam must step up to fill a gap (play a role) that he sees Dean as abandoning since Hell. This theme of Sam’s perception of Dean as weak is also featured in “Sex and Violence” and “On the Head of a Pin,” and just emphasizes the extent Sam’s thinking is tangled up in the family dynamic, which only undercuts his denial of Chuck’s question about whether the blood makes him feel stronger and more in control.

By this point Sam isn’t denying that what he’s doing might be wrong (he even expresses a wish that he could stop), but he is rationalizing his actions as the only pragmatic solution to Lilith’s threat -- unknowingly playing right into Ruby’s plans to make him the ultimate Scapegoat -- the one who releases Lucifer. Chuck’s description of Sam’s actions as “unsympathetic” again emphasize the very Scapegoatness of what he’s doing - and emphasizes the monstrousness of blood drinking. This exchange drives home once again the comparison between Sam’s actions in season 4 with what Gordon Walker did in “Fresh Blood”: both give in to what they see as their own monstrosity in order to achieve righteous goals. And both of their “righteous” goals are based on false conclusions -- Gordon believes that Sam is the antichrist, while Sam believes that killing Lilith will stop the breaking of the seals and the release of Lucifer, when in fact the opposite is true.

The tension between Sam and Dean comes to a head in “When the Levee Breaks” when Dean asks Sam to ditch Ruby and Sam refuses:

4.21

> DEAN  
>  Because it's not something that you're doing, it's what you are! It means—
> 
> SAM  
>  What? No. Say it.
> 
> DEAN  
>  It means you're a monster.

In 4.14, Dean had originally placed blame for the change he saw in Sam on Sam’s lies (his behavior) and not the demon blood (his inherent existence); after witnessing the effects of Sam’s withdrawal, Dean speaks aloud Sam’s greatest fear (which to this point Dean had always rejected), and Sam understandably reacts. But again: Sam is accepting that frame: that he might be monstrous, that he should continue playing the role of Scapegoat.

How does this play out for Sam at the season’s end? Through consciously doing wrong for what he sees as the right reasons. Gordon Walker had a choice: he knew very well that there were vampires who had claimed to resist drinking human blood; and yet he chose to kill people because he believed he himself had become a monster, incapable of anything else (he never believed the vampire Lenore’s story of abstinence, so he was unable to accept the possibility), and because he thought the power he got from being a vampire gave him the strength to kill Sam. When Sam talked to Chuck in 4.18 he was still at an ambiguous point: drinking the blood of an empty vessel whose inhabitant had given him consent. By the season finale, however, he gives only a token protest to draining the blood of a possessed woman against her will, knowing it is the woman and not the demon who will suffer. By doing so he finally gives in to the supposed destiny he has been struggling against since the first season.

How he’s reached this point is complex: he’s reacting not just to how he’s been treated within his family system, but specifically to Dean’s labeling him a monster in the previous episode. However, he alone makes the choice to do wrong for a cause he thinks is righteous.

The confrontation between Sam and Ruby after Sam has broken the last seal hints at the cycle, the perpetuation of his role, that the Scapegoat faces:

4.22

> SAM  
>  The blood... You poisoned me.
> 
> RUBY  
>  No. It wasn't the blood. It was you... and your choices. I just gave you the options, and you chose the right path every time. You didn't need the feather to fly, you had it in you the whole time, Dumbo! I know it's hard to see it now... but this is a miracle. So long coming. Everything Azazel did, and Lilith did. Just to get you here. And you were the only one who could do it.

In shock, Sam tries to pass responsibility for what’s happened onto Ruby and the blood he’s consumed. And while Ruby confirms the manipulation that Sam’s faced from Azazel, Lilith and Ruby herself, she is correct: Sam’s choices were made freely, and in the face of repeated advice from friends and family that he reconsider what he was doing.

It’s the Scapegoat’s dilemma in a nutshell. By choosing a path where the ends justify the means -- where murdering a possessed woman and drinking demon blood, despite how he felt it changing him, were viewed as a necessary trade off to defeating Lilith -- Sam succumbed to the belief system he tried to buck back when he left for Stanford -- to John’s way of looking at the world. And as a result Sam perpetuates his role as Scapegoat within his family, confirming his own fear that he is a monster. By ensuring Lucifer’s escape, Sam’s actions in turn cause him to fill the role of Scapegoat to the Apocalypse. So the cycle continued on.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**How Sam and Lucifer Differ**

Lucifer reacted to God's orders to put humans first by perverting a human soul into the first demon, Lilith, in an excellent example of a scapegoat perpetuating his role. As punishment for his defiance of God, he was imprisoned in hell, made the scapegoat of the heavenly family. In Sam, his chosen vessel, Lucifer believes he’s found a sympathetic ear; and it’s Sam’s role as a fellow scapegoat that Lucifer attempts to exploit to gain that sympathy.

Lucifer tries to play up the parallels between his situation and Sam’s during the confrontation in “Abandon All Hope”:

5.10

> LUCIFER   
>  I know, it's awful, but these horsemen are so demanding. So it was women and children first. I know what you must think of me, Sam. But I have to do this. I have to. **You of all people should understand.** ...   
>  I was a son. A brother, like you, a younger brother, and I had an older brother who I loved. Idolized, in fact. And one day I went to him and I begged him to stand with me, and Michael—Michael turned on me. Called me a freak. A monster. And then he beat me down. All because I was different. Because I had a mind of my own. Tell me something, Sam. Any of this sound familiar?

Comparing his own relationship to Michael with Sam’s relationship with Dean, Lucifer calls up the conflict between the Winchester brothers in season 4, directly referencing Dean’s labeling Sam a monster in 4.21. And he describes the position both he and Sam fill in their families, complete with some of the typical traits of the Scapegoat.

Then in the season 5 finale, in an effort to get Sam to stop fighting him for control, Lucifer speaks some of Sam’s fears about himself aloud, and continually tries to make connections between them:

5.22

> LUCIFER   
>  I've been waiting for you... For a long, long time. Come on, Sam. You have to admit -- You can feel it, right? 
> 
> SAM   
>  What? 
> 
> LUCIFER   
>  The exhilaration. And you know why that is? Because we're two halves made whole. M.F.E.O. Literally. 
> 
> SAM   
>  This feels pretty damn far from good. 
> 
> LUCIFER   
>  I'm inside your grapefruit, Sam. You can't lie to me. I see it all -- How odd you always felt, How...Out of place In that... Family of yours. And why shouldn't you have? They were foster care -- at best. I'm your real family. 
> 
> SAM   
>  No, that's not true. 
> 
> LUCIFER   
>  It is. And I know you know it. All those times you ran away, You weren't running from them. You were running towards me. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, you know. I let Dean live, didn't I? I want him to live. I'll bring your folks back, too. I want you to be happy, Sam.

Perhaps blinded by the role he himself is playing, Lucifer severely miscalculated. Because ironically, it was breaking the final seal and releasing Lucifer that started Sam on a different path, one that would ensure he would in the end prove himself very different from Lucifer, despite their parallel family roles, which in turn led to Lucifer’s defeat.

Unlike Lucifer, Sam had at one time managed to break away from his dysfunctional family system and live as his own person, outside of the restrictions of family roles, while he was at Stanford. As is very common for children of dysfunctional families -- especially as a reaction to stressors -- Sam eventually fell back into the role he’d temporarily eschewed, but he did get that taste of himself as independent from his family. 

Also unlike the Lucifer/Michael dynamic, Sam and Dean’s relationship is far more complex than the rigidity of their roles suggests on the surface. Take Dean’s admiration of Sam’s ability to stand up to their father (in “Scarecrow”), for instance. On one hand, it’s behavior typical of a Scapegoat and typically rejected as negative by the family; but Dean (at that moment, anyway) was able to recognize the positive side of the trait, as well as his own inability to follow Sam’s example. And by the time the show reaches “The Dark Side of the Moon”, Sam has started to recognize some of what makes Dean act the role he does, as The Hero/Caretaker: wondering aloud how long Dean has been cleaning up their father’s messes. Sam starts to realize that his idolized big brother is just as powerless as Sam has always felt -- and Sam moves from the weakness he accused Dean of in season 4 towards compassion.

In season 5, Sam breaks away from the pattern Lucifer is still entangled in, and begins to take responsibility for his own actions. It’s this, more than anything (arguably more even than his love for Dean) that separates Sam from Lucifer. After all, Lucifer claims to love his brother as well. But what Lucifer can’t do is see his own culpability in the family drama. Instead, he does nothing but blame everyone else for his own actions.

Because she put it so well, I'm going to extensively quote [](https://dafnap.livejournal.com/profile)[**dafnap**](https://dafnap.livejournal.com/) here, with permission:

> Sam left his family for college because of the same behavior Lucifer was bucking under, but instead of seeking vengeance, getting revenge for being slighted by John, Sam, unlike Lucifer, chooses a path that disconnects him from the flawed family dynamic completely. He doesn't seek out to prove John wrong, or get John to treat him as an equal, or change a system he perceives as flawed -- he removes himself from it completely.

> Lucifer, in contrast, turns the first human into a demon out of revenge, out of spite. He resents the system but plays by it still, corrupted as it is. Lucifer's charge against his father is just, but he can't extricate himself from it, he can't find another vocabulary for himself -- he's still playing by the rules even as he resents them. Vengeance, ultimately, is allowing yourself to be defined by the thing you hate... Doing horrible things in the name of vengeance is "not your fault" because they started it first. It's childish. 

> Sam, in the end of season three into season four, follows a similar pattern. His belief that the flawed family system that brought them to this place is intact, but he can't see a way out of it anymore, he can't help but participate in it. It's almost a comfort, to have that path defined for you -- Sam seeks out vengeance in the same manner his father did ("Lillith's head on a plate. Bloody.") He can't see a way out, and in the theme of avoiding personal responsibility, doesn't want to. The path is clear -- he doesn't have to discover or forge for himself a different one. It is, ultimately,easier. Decided. Defined. No need to take responsibility for your actions if it's ultimately in the service of vengeance, a path defined by the person you're seeking vengeance on.

While Sam struggled in season 4 with some of the same rationalizations Lucifer spouts in season 5, in the end Sam managed to move beyond this line of thinking -- in season 5, Sam starts to grow up. Growing up is hard, nevermoreso than for someone from a dysfunctional family, who has no other frame of reference, no good example to emulate. Despite this, by the end of season 5 Sam is making an attempt to find a new way. Part of being a full adult is acknowledging not only the impact your family has had on you, but your own responsibility for your actions in the context of that impact. 

Lucifer, however, continued to reject any responsibility for what he'd done. He refuses to grow up. While it appears at first glance that Lucifer is rejecting his role in the apocalypse -- telling Micheal they don't have to fight -- he proves he's still following his assigned role by refusing to take responsibility for his actions, and blaming his father.

5.22

> LUCIFER   
>  It's not my fault. Dad made everything. He made me who I am.

Which is true, on one level: our families help make us who we are. It can be argued that Sam's upbringing, as well as elements outside of his control, led him to releasing Lucifer; but as Ruby points out, it was Sam himself who made the decisions. Sam's upbringing might have helped create the framework of his potential destiny, but he still had the free will to make his own decisions about what he did as an adult. Same with Lucifer. And where Lucifer is still making excuses based on his family, Sam takes responsibility for his decisions, for his part in releasing Lucifer. 

Sam decides to clean up his own mess, regardless of how much that mess was helped along by outside forces, because ultimately the decision to enact vengeance on Lilith? That was all Sam.  The ultimate difference is that Sam rejected Lucifer's inability to take responsibility for his own actions.

5.05

> SAM   
>  Look. I know what I did. What I've done. And I am trying to climb out of that hole, I am, but you're not making it any easier. 
> 
> DEAN   
>  So what am I supposed to do, just let you off the hook? 
> 
> SAM   
>  No. You can think whatever you want. I deserve it, and worse.

Sam's not quite there yet in this passage, but he's making strides towards the greater maturity he'll show by the end of the season. This is what Lucifer was unable to accept, a point that Michael stresses during their confrontation at Stull:

5.22 _  
_

> MICHAEL  
>  You haven't changed a bit, little brother. Always blaming everybody but yourself. 
> 
> LUCIFER   
>  No one makes Dad do anything. He is doing this to us.

While Lucifer isn’t wrong that God had a hand in the roles he and Michael are playing, Lucifer refuses to accept any of the responsibility for what he’s done -- the creation of demons, unleashing the Horsemen, slaughtering humans, killing his brother Gabriel. Contrast this with the change in Sam's view of John, as expressed to the younger John in “The Song Remains the Same”:

5.13

> JOHN   
>  The number it must've done on your head... Your father was supposed to protect you. 
> 
> SAM   
>  He was trying. He died trying. Believe me. I used to be mad at him. I-I mean, I used to... I used to hate the guy. But now I-I... I get it. He was...just doing the best he could.And he was trying to keep it together in—in—in this impossible situation. See... My mom, um... She was amazing, beautiful, and she was the love of his life. And she got killed. And...I think he would have gone crazy if he didn't do something. Truth is, um, my dad died before I got to tell him that I understand why he did what he did. And I forgive him for what it did to us. I do. And I just—I love him.

And while I think Sam is letting John off the hook a bit here, the point is that he’s moving towards a more balanced view of his father and his family dynamic by beginning to put things into perspective, by no longer reacting against his father’s authority. And in contrast to his actions in season 4, Sam makes a decision to do things differently at the end of season 5, by saying he won’t go through with his plan to say Yes to Lucifer without Bobby and Dean’s agreement. By the finale, Sam explicitly states his choice to take responsibility for Lucifer’s release:

5.22

> SAM   
>  I let him out. I got to put him back in.

In their roles as scapegoats, both Sam and Lucifer start to question their family structures, why things are the way they are; but only Sam makes any effort to take responsibility for his own actions within that structure, and only Sam makes any effort to change things. And this is why Lucifer ultimately lost.  
 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

  
Sam as traditional scapegoat

I think by this point I’ve made a decent (and wordy!) argument that SPN  portrays Sam Winchester and Lucifer both as scapegoats in their respective dysfunctional families, and laid out how Sam’s choices set him apart from Lucifer.

This next part is far less clear to me, as I’m way more familiar with the roles in dysfunctional families than I am with Judaism and the Bible. But I do find it intriguing, so I thought I’d tie this essay up by suggesting that Sam not only serves the role of scapegoat in the dysfunctional family sense, but also in a more traditional sense.

By taking responsibility for Lucifer’s release on himself, by trying to break out of his role of family scapegoat, Sam might fill an older and more symbolic definition of “scapegoat.”

To quote the Wikipedia, in the literal ritual sacrifice of the goat, meant for purification, by the ancient Jews:

the sending of the goat was... a symbolic expression of the idea that the people's sins and their evil consequences were to be sent back to the spirit of desolation and ruin, the source of all impurity. [ (1) ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azazel)

And even more interestingly, as someone in fandom once pointed out (and I’ve since forgotten who): The word "scapegoat" is a mistranslation of the word[ Azazel ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azazel). Which, of course, we learn in 3.02 is the name of the Yellow Eyed Demon.

According to the Wiki entry on the history of scapegoating, the biblical scapegoat was a goat that was designated "for Azazel" and driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement. [ (2) ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating#History)

However, the entry for Azazel indicates that not one, but two goats were part of the ritual:  
it was Jewish custom to draw lots for two goats: one for the Lord and the other for Azazel. The goat for the Lord was then sacrificed and its blood served as atonement. With the goat for Azazel, the high priest would place both of his hands on the goat's head and confess both his sins and the sins of the people. The goat ("scapegoat") was then led into the desert and set free. [ (3) ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azazel)

Which is interesting, since it wasn’t just Sam/Lucifer who fell into the cage in 5.22, but Adam/Michael as well. Given that we know Sam returns to Earth (in some form), it’s tempting to pair him with the goat for Azazel, let free into the wilderness, with Adam as the blood sacrifice of atonement. However, I don’t think the show was being this literal. Simply put, I think because Sam was the one to cage Lucifer by trapping himself, we can perhaps see Sam as the sacrifice for atonement -- not for the sins of an entire people, necessarily, but arguably for the “sins” of family dysfunction -- both his family and the Heavenly family. By which, I of course do not intend to erase Sam's own role in this dysfunction, or his role in Lucifer's release. I'm speaking purely metaphorically.

But it is too cool to pass up, especially in the context of the rest of this essay.

 


End file.
